SSD Bridge Collateral Damage

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SSD Bridge Collateral Damage

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the_stag
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Post by the_stag » Sat Oct 09, 2021 9:31 pm

I edited the SUPERSTARDESTROYER.OPT so that the Bridge has explosion Type1, Type2. This has worked well for my purpose of having it get destroyed like it does at the end of X-Wing vs.TIE Fighter: Balance of Power. Now when the corvette hits it, the bridge explodes and it looks great (except the bases of the shield generators are still there, floating in space as a detached part of the SSD).

The thing I'm hoping to get some help with here is that it does virtually no damage to the SSD itself. My end goal is for the bridge to be destroyed and the SSD to suffer a large amount of hull damage. I've made several modifications in an attempt to do this, and the closest I've come up with is to increase the hull of the CRV with a hook and have it whittle away the SSD hull as it rams into the "neck area" after destroying the bridge. There must be a better way to accomplish this, but I don't know what it is.

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the_stag
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Post by the_stag » Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:23 pm

I've continued to play around with my options, and at this point I've found something that works for delivering damage. The first thing I did was set the corvette orders to Kamikaze. That order has some interesting programming. If I set it with the SSD as the target, the CRV will head straight for the center of the SSD, effectively just ramming the superstructure. Even though the waypoints have it going straight into the bridge. If you don't set a target with the Kamikaze order, once the CRV get's to the point where it's going to collide with the bridge, it makes a hard turn and dives away from the bridge and into the superstructure. Unfortunately for me I want the bridge destroyed.

In order to create the desired effect I created the following in Corvette2Standard.ini:
[StatsProfile_Thunder]
Roll = 0
Pitch = 1
Yaw = 0
HullStrength = 90000

And changed the mission ini to reflect that:
Corvette2Standard_fgc_1 = Thunder

The need for all of this is twofold. First, if I only use the SS Patrol Waypoints (or something similar), the CRV will hit the bridge, and then slide up and over whats left of it and not do the desired amount of damage. Second, without limiting the maneuverability of the CRV, it just moves out of the way. Setting the pitch to 1 allows the CRV to barely dive into the SSD while also hitting the bridge and doing maximum hull damage.

I've started to work in OPTech and Opt Editor to merge the shield generators and bases into one mesh, but that's proving to be a little too right-brained for me. I've worked around this by copying object profile TwoShields in SuperStarDestroyer.ini, renaming it TwoShieldsBoP and adding mesh 33. The struts are still there, although they are not nearly as detailed. But once the shield generators and the bridge are destroyed there are not oddities with floating parts.

Now I can finally get to balancing the mission and making it playable. I hope to have that done within the week.

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Ace Antilles
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Post by Ace Antilles » Mon Oct 11, 2021 7:08 pm

You can name your edited Opt SSDBop.opt for example and use the INI to replace it in the mission necessary.
You could also hide a small opt inside the bridge and set it to blow up or something when the corvette is destroyed maybe for extra damage.
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the_stag
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Post by the_stag » Tue Oct 12, 2021 5:49 pm

Thanks @Ace Antilles. That's a cleaner way to implement the SSD than what I was doing.

I'll have to look into the explosion opt and see how I can implement that. Is there any reading that exists for this purpose already?

Dante82
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Post by Dante82 » Wed Oct 13, 2021 1:02 am

Can't you turn the bridge into a generator like in Battle 3 Mission 3: Recon Imperial Research Facility?

In this mission you destroy the hatch, fly into the research facility and destroy the reactor, the whole station explodes.

Bman
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Post by Bman » Wed Oct 13, 2021 8:15 am

Dante82 is on the right track. You might try duplicating the bridge mesh, make sure it's in exact same spot. Make one of the bridge meshes "Reactor" type mesh I think, using XWAOptEditor. Maybe even make that duplicate mesh completely transparent and perhaps slightly scaled larger than the actual bridge mesh so in way it would be a de-facto "shields" mesh. When it gets destroyed, it should take out the whole model. You might also experiment with the explosion types. Yes, setting explosion type1 + type2 allows for a particular mesh to be destroyed. Other combinations or just single field entries may give the model a different behavior. Some are meant for starfighter models. But again the mesh type also determines the effect. Engine meshes usually use Type1+2+3 so that when they get destroyed, they go black and stop the ship's movement.

As far as merging the shield generators into one group mesh, you could do that. But I believe it's possible to assign different meshes into groups based on their component target ID # in XwaOptEditor. So for example, you could set all Shield meshes with a target ID# of 1 or another positive integer number instead of default 0 and see if that achieves the same affect. It's sometimes a pain to cycle through mesh types of a starship with your ' key during game play, so grouping things based on id #'s consolidates a lot of clutter. Like MainHull mesh types for example. Hope that helps.
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the_stag
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Post by the_stag » Sat Apr 16, 2022 2:36 am

@Ace Antilles @Dante82 @Bman
Thanks for all the ideas. Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this. I ended up editing the exe so that the game behaves more like the original. I've just about finished the campaign but had to circle around on this. First, let me mention a couple of fun things I've found in testing:
1) The Super Star Destroyer Bridge appears to only be destructible if a large enough ship rams it.
2) The SSD bridge can only be destroyed in that fashion if the shield generators are destroyed first. I've only tested with the 2 shield generator variant I've edited, but that works consistently.
3) Destroying the bridge doesn't do any significant damage to the SSD itself. Only the small amount that a CRV would do if it were to ram anywhere.

So that's all good and well. At least I understand it more now. But I've tried different methods to get the SSD to take the damage required with no luck. Using Xwa Opt Editor, I first tried just changing the bridge mesh typer to a Energy Generator (that's the one the Imperial Research Center uses) and then to a Reactor. Both times the "bridge" is destructible, but nothing of note happens to the SSD.

I also tried duplicating the bridge, changing that to Energy Generator (also tried Reactor), clearing the textures, and increasing the Hitzone Span by various sizes. That didn't work for me.

Last thing I've tried is: I duplicated the bridge, changed it to Energy Generator (also tried Reactor) and made the Hitzone Span a little smaller so it could hide inside the bridge. I didn't clear the textures with this attempt, but every time the game would crash after I launched from the hangar.

Any other ideas? I feel like I'm missing something simple, but I can't think of what that is. Thanks brain trust!

Bman
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Post by Bman » Sun Apr 17, 2022 4:10 am

Using AlliED or Yogeme, if you set proximity mines inside the SSD bridge when the Corvette is about to ram it, that might work. Also, AlliED has a "self destruct" order I think but I don't recall when and which objects it works with. If perhaps containers, you could hide them inside SSD bridge too and maybe have some logical trigger or event procedure to set them off and how long they explode.
W-I-P: TFTC, MC Viscount Cr., ISD-II Avenger, NL-1 Platform, Ton-Falk Esc. Cr., & Misc.

Bman
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Post by Bman » Sun Apr 17, 2022 4:18 am

Also, maybe set the bridge mesh with the same group target Id number as the shield meshes or main-hull meshes other than 0 via XwaOptEditor.
W-I-P: TFTC, MC Viscount Cr., ISD-II Avenger, NL-1 Platform, Ton-Falk Esc. Cr., & Misc.

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the_stag
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Post by the_stag » Sun Apr 17, 2022 6:08 pm

Thanks for the ideas @Bman. The target ID doesn't appear to work as hoped. I can group different mesh types into a single target ID, but MainHull appears to separate itself from the others, regardless of the ID. I also tried the proximity mine inside the bridge, but they don't seem to want to follow a flight path, they just orbit until they hit something, then explode.

Now for the good news, if I hide a Cargo Canister (C/C) inside the bridge, the Corvette will destroy the bridge and destroy the C/C. When I set the SSD to Self Destruct when the C/C is destroyed, that works too. The timing is a little off, as even if I set it to 0 seconds to wait before self destructing, it still takes about 3 seconds. Also, the SSD doesn't care about the Explosion Time (as it's set to 155 seconds in the rebel part of the campaign), it just explodes into tiny pieces immediately due to the self destruct command. And lastly, it's too bad I can't "hide" the C/C so it won't show up as a target. None of those are deal breaking, I just want to share everything I've found in case someone might ever find it useful.

All-in-all I think I'll go with the C/C solution since I can't seem to make anything else work. I need to run through the campaign in XvT again, then run through it in XWA as well to make sure everything is still working right. I'll let you all know when it's (re)released.

Bman
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Post by Bman » Mon Apr 18, 2022 4:45 am

Another idea I just thought of. Load two SSD FG's into the same exact coordinates per AlliED or Yogeme mission editor. Use the object profile hook to hide the bridge mesh. For the second SSD--hide all meshes except the bridge mesh. Each would have to have their own profile name you specify in the SSD.ini file and also reference in the mission.ini file using MS-Notepad. (See DTM's new TieFighters for example). Hopefully the second SSD bridge being hit by corvette.opt will cause enough collateral damage to the first actual model, it''s conning tower. OR another idea... maybe open XwaOptEditor, load the SuperStarDestroyer.opt, and delete all meshes except the bridge mesh. Save As "SSDBridge.opt". Then in the mission.ini file use objects replacement hook statement: FlightModels\CargoCanister.opt = FlightModels\SSDBridge.opt ..... The CargoCanister.opt model will still maintain it's stats but take on the virtual form of the bridge, unless you create a SSDBridge.ini file and change the stats to make it really weak, like no shields, low hull integrity values and so forth. Sorry about proximity mines. Thought they were suppose to be stationary and go off when the target is in range. Oh, you can lengthen the explosion time in seconds of any FG object/craft by going to the departure tab in AlliED and find that box at the bottom left corner of that tab screen.
W-I-P: TFTC, MC Viscount Cr., ISD-II Avenger, NL-1 Platform, Ton-Falk Esc. Cr., & Misc.

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